Not Everyone Conducts Inner Speech

Inner speech is frequent but not for everyone

Your pristine inner experience is whatever is directly in your experience-before the footlights of your consciousness, as William James would say-at some moment. My previous blogs have observed that some people –women with bulimia nervosa, for example– have frequent multiple simultaneous experiences, but that multiple experience is not frequent in the general population.

If not multiple experiences, what are the frequently occurring phenomena of pristine experience? Chris Heavey and I gave random beepers to a stratified random sample of 30 students from a large urban university and interviewed them about the characteristics of their randomly selected pristine experiences. Five main characteristics emerged, each occurring in about a quarter of all samples (many samples had more than one characteristic). Three of those five characteristics may not surprise you: inner speech occurred in about a quarter of all samples; inner seeing occurred in about a quarter of all samples; and feelings occurred in about a quarter of all samples. The other two phenomena occurred just as frequently but are not so well known.

Consider inner speech. Subject experienced themselves as innerly talking to themselves in 26% of all samples, but there were large individual differences: some subjects never experienced inner speech; other subjects experienced inner speech in as many as 75% of their samples. The median percentage across subjects was 20%.

As a result of this study and others we have conducted, I'm confident that inner speech is a robust phenomenon-if you use a proper method, there's little doubt about whether or not inner speech is occurring at any given moment. And I'm confident about the individual differences-some people talk to themselves a lot, some never, some occasionally.

But Bernard Baars, one of the leading researchers in consciousness science, says:

Human beings talk to themselves every moment of the waking day. Most readers of this sentence are doing it now. It becomes a little clearer with difficult-to-say words, like ‘infundibulum' or ‘methylparabine'. In fact, we talk to ourselves during dreams, and there is even evidence for inner speech during deep sleep, the most unconscious state we normally encounter. Overt speech takes up perhaps a tenth of the waking day; but inner speech goes on all the time.

And John McWhorter, noted linguist, says:

When we utter a word, we cannot help but mentally see an image of its written version. In our heads, what we have said ... is that sequence of written symbols. When we say "dog," a little picture of that word flashes through our minds, Sesame Street-style..... Imagine saying "dog" and only thinking of a canine, but not thinking of the written word. If you're reading this book, it follows that you couldn't pull this off even at gunpoint.

I'm pretty sure that Baars and McWhorter are entirely mistaken. Maybe Baars talks to himself all the time, and maybe McWhorter himself sees images of written words while he talks (there's reason to be skeptical of both claims), but I've investigated such things as carefully as I know how and become convinced that most people (let alone all people) do not do such things.

My aim is not to criticize Baars and McWhorter; their comments are typical of claims that many others make about inner experience. Instead, I wish to draw your attention to the theme of this series of blogs: most people (including psychologists and consciousness scientists and quite likely you, dear reader), don't know the characteristics of their own and others' inner experience. Otherwise, there would be editors, reviewers, readers saying "Bernie! I don't talk to myself every moment!" "John! I don't see written words when I talk!"?

I'd be happy to have you or science say, "No, Russ, it's you who is mistaken. Bernie and John are right," as long as you go on to say, "and we know that because we've developed a method of exploring pristine experience that's better than the one you and your colleagues use."

But as far as I know, you and science are not in a position to say that.

Q: So what are the fourth and fifth most-frequently-occurring features of pristine experience?

A: You make my point: Psychological science, and probably most readers of this blog, don't know the main features of experience. And it's not that the remaining phenomena are minor, in fourth and fifth place after inner speech, inner seeing, and feeling. All five are in basically a five-way tie for first place. I'll describe features 4 and 5 are in subsequent blogs; in the meantime, I urge you to commit yourself to your speculation: send yourself a text (or jot down) a few words describing what you think are the fourth and fifth main phenomena of inner experience. Don't feel bad if you find that difficult-you're in good company.

so is talking to ourselves actually normal? It could be seen as a habbit that needs to be broken in some respects. Most of us would probably talk to ourselves in our heads and not out loud but if we are blind why do we talk to ourselves out loud? though not everybody does talk to themselves out loud and frequently. Either i am the only person who babbles to himself all the time or it has been a common thing

I am a 17 years old girl, I am having the experience of having an imaginary friend, some thing like that. I always talk with her and having conversation in mind. We have different memories. Judged by doc, was not said as insane, but cannot help me(us).Would it called DID? Or another mental illness? I have no idea of should it be called normal, as my CP told me.

It sounds a little like multiple personality disorder. It may be nothing. The big questions are do you or did you have blackouts, were arrested and you do not know why, or have people accused you of doing things that you do not remember. If so it might be a good idea to talk to a psychologist who is interested in the subject.

I admit I do this occasionally too. I don't think it's that unusual, although some people might raise their eyebrows if you talk about it.
I find myself making comments to my dead Brother and dead Mother. I also talk to a couple of dead friends. For me, these are one-way conversations. What's really going on is I have an observation that pops into my mind- maybe a feeling- that I know they would have appreciated.
I think it is similar to what religious people call prayer. Why is it ok to talk to a God, but not to an imaginary or non-present person? It's allowing an emotionally-drenched feeling to unfold.
Also, pet owners and gardeners talk to animals and plants.
Also, much of what passes as actual conversation is people talking past each other and not necessarily understanding or capturing what the speaker actually tried to communicate. So if you eliminating talking to imaginary friends and bagels and sunsets and the ocean and your dog you still don't gaurantee reliable communication.

I don't have conversations with "myself", but but I do have conversations with imaginary people. For instance, when I read through this post I frequently looked away from the computer screen and imagined myself talking to another person about what I had just read. This how thoughts run through my head, in addition to running imaginary "movies" through my head(sequences of blurry images). Does this count as talking to myself?

I experience inner speech almost constantly, but as above, I never talk TO myself, I talk to an imaginary audience (a jury of sorts), or an imaginary friend, or a specific real friend (but in an imaginary conversation - I may never actually have the conversation with the real friend), depending on the topic.

Does anone actually talk TO themselves, or hear a voice talking TO them? Not me. It is more like I have a running commentary on life going on, and in difficult situations or times of difficult decisions, I explain, argue, defend, discuss them with an imaginary interlocutor.

Sometimes though it is just through images that I think first, then look for words to describe the inner movie I am seeing, and sometimes the words are inadequate.

I imagine this varies. People who lead more intellectual lives based on lots of reading, discussing ideas, debating, probably also have inner lives that are very verbal. People whose lives are more based on mundane, practical, physical concerns, probably think more with images and feelings, or even physical sensations. I find that easy to conceive of.

Submitted by A Frequent Conversationalist on January 9, 2017 - 10:21am

Hi, I am someone who experiences inner monologue and dialogue almost constantly throughout my day. My train of thought/Stream of consciousness has always been this way, since I can remember. In the following order these are what I experience as inner consciousness and how often I experience them:

1.Talking to myself
I often have conversations in my head where the subject is I, we or you ("you" most often references myself in these conversations). An example is as follows "I wonder what I will eat for dinner today... I guess I'm craving pizza" or "You shouldn't leave for school without brushing your teeth first" these are all "said" in my head by an imaginary voice. The voice changes tone and pitch and even takes on accents (such as British accent or French accent, I am also a French speaker as a second language) the accent is relative to the inner conversation going on in my head. Ie might be a British accent when thinking/talking to myself about etiquette. Might be french accent when thinking/talking to myself about fine wine and cheese etc.

2. Visualizing Letters and Numbers
I have always had an affinity for math, and again as long as I can remember I have been able to see numbers, count, add, subtract, and perform other types of math equations in my head. As a matter of fact I start every day with a visual workout routine that involves seeing numbers and words + letters with my mind's eye. HOWEVER I do not see complete sentences in my mind UNLESS I consciously make the decision and effort to do so. Seeing full words is not hard, but visualizing everything that I say or that is said to me is challenging for my mind. I often notice I will only visualize key words of a sentence or conversation. Or I will visualize big words or people's full names as a memory aid.

3. Emotion
Some might call this sociopathic, but I frequently have days, weeks, months, or just a period in a day when I feel very numb and void of emotion, interestingly I find it easier to visualize during these times and often my internal chatter will be rampant, nonstop, and sometimes it feels out of my own control.

One other experience (not sure which category this fits under)... As a lifelong musician, and someone who listens to music every day, I often hear entire songs, parts of songs or just specific instruments or singing from a particular song in my head. I have even gotten as far as making music I've never heard before using different instruments in my head, with my imagination. For example I often imagine a unique created piece of Orchestral (Classical-type) music at night to occupy my mind while I fall asleep.

Hope this gives some insight into the way our minds are all different and beautiful in unique ways! :)

Also feel free to ask further questions if you have any as this topic is very interesting to me and I'm intregued by the way others think (especially when radically different than my own ways of thinking)

I am 100% with you on all of the above! I have always heard music around me as I've grown up, and always sung myself to sleep with the harmonics playing in my head, an orchestra, or even a heavy metal band, (not frequent, but, you know.....,), backing it all. Do you also sometimes see musical tones or frequencies as colours? I find that I am sometimes able to feel this. I also have what I call 'sympathetic sensations', like when I see a bird on an aerial. If it catches my eye, I can feel the cold metal under my feet, which are curled around the prongs. Or, I can see a bird flying and feel, without moving, the air pressing on my chest, and along my outstretched wings, feeling the feathers and keeping them under control at the very tips.

The 5th thing might be associations with jingles or catch phrases. Like hearing someone say "I'll be back" and Arnold Schwarzenegger saying "I'll be back" pops into your head without your control. You're not really talking to yourself, it's more a memory that is being triggered.

Then if some people do not have inner speech nor inner images, how do their brain work?

I am always having either inner speech or inner images no matter what I am doing from playing the piano to kissing my girlfriend, maybe the only time I don't is when I make calculations; I see numbers but then again those could be considered inner images or a kind of inner speech...

what is in the head of people who don't have neither inner speech nor inner images?

Most thinking is not conscious. So verbal, abstract, visual, and kinesthetic information is going on even if a person is not aware of it. In most cases but not all they are aware of it but they don't know that their thoughts are something they have rather than who they are. Ask people who claim that they aren't aware of their thoughts to describe their sensations when remembering a certain event and ask them about it as they describe it. It can get embarrassing.

Our recent results show that expanded inner speech is slightly faster (0.6 secs) than outer speech. 16 of 20 participants followed this group finding. We now hypothesize that when outer speech is slower, it is because of the time taken to move the vocal tract structures.

We also speculate that the rate expanded inner speech is the same as the rate of verbal thought.

I believe that most of the time it is helpful to me. My inner speech helps me organize what I do during the day. I live alone and spend almost the entire day alone. I am a writer and my inner speech helps me write and plan out each sentence as I write it. I believe this is one reason why I never have writer's block. I also am never bored and have no reason to own a TV nor do recreational drugs nor drink alcohol for a "high." The voice isn't another person, nor entity inside me. It's me. My parents told me that when I was a child I had imaginary playmates and a rather active and enjoyable playtime with them. I was their first. God bless my mom and dad who so wisely never interfered, and allowed me to enjoy my imagination as much as I needed to. I never questioned whether anyone else had inner speech until just now when I Googled it, nor knew the words for it. I am 58. I am wondering if having active inner speech might account for the fact that I seem to have a rather detailed and accurate memory of exact wording of conversations I've had in the past. I also recall precise emotional impressions of various scenes, and other details that most people tend to forget. I highly doubt my memory is "photographic" even though some people have told me it is.

My dear Russell, inner speech does occur in every single human being and normally is negative inner speech, but when they are aware they're doing it, they can discipline their mind and turn it into positive inner speech which it is a powerful tool to attract all the goodness that life offers. Yes, just by controlling their inner speech. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but the studies you took on the subject are anything but scientific. Inner speech and mind are two gift that God gave to human being and that is what distinguishes us from the lower animals. The fact that the interviewed students said they didn't do inner talks is only because they are not aware of it. Very rare individuals have such a control of their minds that they might be able to silence their mind but a university student would not in a million years be able to possess such a control of his mind.
I just couldn't believe you are so confident in mentioning such a large percentage of individuals not doing inner speech and believing them. Baars and McWhorter seem to have a better understanding of the human mind. Mmmm, it makes me wonder about the content of the rest of your blogs.

Dear Maribel, I have first hand experience with this subject, and thought you would find my thoughts on the matter relevant and possibly surprising. Today on the day of this post, I am healthy minded and sober/clean from all drugs and alcohol. But this was not always the case. In fact after a head injury and back when I WAS NOT clean/sober. I explicitly remember LOSING my inner voice. It is a totally different sensation/experience of reality. My inner voice eventually returned after recovering from the injury, with time, and after I stopped taking both the prescribed painkillers (morphine, T3 etc) and all illicit drugs. Though I still vividly remember not having an internal voice... It is totally unlike anything I had ever known, I felt "simple" my day to day routines where driven only by images related to my goals (example: seeing Toothbrush and knowing my goals is to brush my teeth) and whenever I needed to recite something or create thoughts for communication, it seemed I could only conjure up the first thoughts to come to my mind without any sort of filter. And I would mumble and whisper to myself in Lue of the inner voice. But even when mumbling and whispering there was NO VOICE in my head. Images, occasionally. Other than that I found myself being almost hyper-aware of my surroundings with my incoming visual stimuli as the primary focus throughout my day.

The only other way I could describe this is that when I felt this way, It was like being "in the zone" CONSTANTLY with no alternative other than mental images (which occurred rarely)

If you are an active person or are often involved in sports like surfing, then you have a very firm grasp of what this "in the zone" feeling I'm talking about is really like, if not, well you're out of luck because those are the only ways I can think to describe it.

Rest assured some people I know live their lives in this "in the zone" state constantly. And only after therapy and rehab did I begin to have an inner voice again

Also worth noting, during my recovery period and right after the head injury, I stopped having any and all dreams. Sleeping became nothing more than the sensation of falling asleep, and then, waking up (weird I know)... After rehab and post-recovery I have dreams every night and often I will Lucid Dream

Yep, What you describe sounds a little like runner's high. For me it would come right after I reached the a certain mileage, not every single time, though. For one thing I didn't feel certain parts of my body nor think about them nor need to. If, while running, I'd been telling or re-telling myself a story, that stopped. Only I wasn't aware of that. Because there wasn't awareness at that time...kinda non-awareness. Music didn't change that. In fact I usually had music on which didn't matter.. I recall if I was doing laps the "high" would last only a half or three-quarters of a mile, usually not at the very last lap. Nowadays i'd say it happens much less frequently than it used to.

You are questioning his scientific method and think he's wrong "because God"? Do you not realize the absolute lunacy and irony of this statement? Goodness gracious.... you are not very bright. Not very bright at all.

My son has inner speech from the time he wakes up till he goes to bed. This happened over a year ago after his psychiatrist started mixing meds. He also has to keep moving. He has a reaction to most antipsychotics and many he was on he should not of been because of this. I requested a gene drug metabolizer test after his reaction and he should of been on the lowest dose or another medication. He has a lot of stress and he is dealing with trauma from a car accident, he talk's about this and other stressful things that happened in his life all the time. He also talks about things I do not know if there true. The doctors said he is schizoaffective and just prescribe antipsychotics. Every antipsychotic medication makes him more hyper and he can not sit still and would be walking around the streets till 3am. He also blacked out from a snow mobile accident before all this happened. He had a MRI, he did not want the one with contrast, the Mri showed normal. This all started when he came home from living in another state and then went to see friends in another town for the weekend. A few days later he came home psychotic he was 30 yrs old at he time, I know he was drinking heavy and not sure of drugs. He was stable after being on 1 medication after a year and moved. He went out drinking heavy and not taking the medication and had a break. That is when the doctor started giving 2 antipsychotics and a mood stabilizer, and that started the talking. He ended up in the hospital for over a month and came out worse after they started more antipsychotics. This is when he would be up for almost 24 hrs, walking around. I tried to bring him to a therapist but with him talking to himself and being so involved they can't help. He is off all antipsychotics for about 3 months, he slowed down some (not staying up all night walking) but is still talking all the time and still walking because he needs to be moving. Can someone share there thoughts if they know what can help him. Thanks

I do not want to comment but it is clear that you should take him to another psychiatrist. Do you know anyone who is a mental health professional? Can they talk to him? I have seen many cases like that. Usually someone will find a place that improve things but it takes time.

I started wondering about this a few years ago and actually started interviewing my friends and people around me trying to find out "the shape of their thoughts."

I do not have an inner monologue/ voice, unless I consciously "speak to myself" or spell out words or something similar. At one point I also noticed that I usually do not have to consciously analyze something (either that or I am not consciously aware of when I do so) and that the complete analysis/ my opinion as to a concept's accuracy or viability/ and other in-depth considerations of a given concept seems to spring from my subconscious, wholly formed, and made available to my conscious thoughts from some part of my mind I am not aware of.

The above, along with the difficulty I sometimes have in converting my nebulous thoughts into speech that can be effectively communicated to others, led me to wonder if perhaps I "thought" differently than other people and "the shape" that other people's thoughts take. For example, at times when I am attempting to convey a story or a concept to one or more people I will often get off-track explaining an underlying concept or back-story that is necessary to understand the context of my original point/ story.

Upon conducting my interviews and questions I did not get many satisfying answers, with most people not understanding what I was trying to ask them and others responding with wispy answers such as "the shape of my thoughts is blue."

In fact, I've asked people I live with to not turn on the radio in the morning. When they asked why, they thought my answer was weird: because it's louder than the voice in my head and I can't perform my morning routine without that voice.

Or I'm doing 'nothing' in a room and someone turns one the tv, I get up and go. But how does this disturb me? Well, the voice in my head might be analyzing options for a vacation or a trying to resolve a problem for work or just making my grocery list... TV just gets in the way of my normal functions.

I went to a store to buy a printer once and left because the music was louder than the voice in my head. I couldn't hear my own inside voice commenting on prices and features so I could not decide which printer to buy. I couldn't see the numbers when trying to compare the price of the printer itself with the price of cartridge. Without being able to hear the voice, I couldn't do math. I went to another nearby store and bought the printer there.

Same for choosing a movie. I went to a video store once and someone had decided to show their kid who ran the show: we're not leaving until you stop crying... Well, 15 minute later the kid was still crying (or more like screaming at the top of his lungs) and I gave up and left. I couldn't choose a movie with the screaming being louder than my decision making process, I could barely read the labels.

When I drive in the city and I need to concentrate on the road and on finding a parking spot at the same time, I have to turn off the radio, even if it's music. Same if there is a snow storm or other bad weather conditions. There are things I won't see without the voice, they won't register as empty parking spot or danger unless the voice can imprint them. The voice is necessary both to keep my attention on something and for short term memory.

I had depression once... It lasted for over a year. I went to see a psychologist who insisted that I talk about my negative thought patterns... I couldn't, nothing was going on and to me that was the problem. Without the voice, I was a zombie. When I got up to go to the shower in the morning, the effort was such that my eyes cried... so what was I thinking about that was so sad? Nothing. Total silence.

Introspection is a skill that takes a long time to master. Most people do it casually and rarely know what is happening. Inner speech is being aware of one's information processing or thinking. If one is not aware of their thinking it can mean they simply can not report on their own conscious or all their thoughts are unconsciousness. It is easy to tell the difference. All you have to do is ask the person to describe the sensations that they have when they do a simple task like getting into a bathtub or cooking an egg. If they cannot describe their sensations they are not self aware. Inner speech can be visual when you look at face and see a face from your memory and compare the two. Thinking can be purely abstract. People do not speak words in their head all the time but they think they do because they only remember the words. When you move your arm must you say “I am moving my arm?” That is just silly. People know how to move their arm or their body and that movement starts with a thought. But those thoughts are not words. When people drive and control the movement of their car most of their thoughts are kinesthetic. The same thing is true of airline pilots. There is a program to teach airline pilots to say what they are going to do before they do it so they can avoid accidents. If they do not say it they can’t reflect on it because it is almost impossible to reflect on kinesthetic thoughts. Verbal thoughts allow is to question what we do because we know how to question what we say and so do others.

I found the comments more illuminating than the article. Einstein claimed he had very few verbal thoughts and used words as he used numbers - mainly to communicate his perceptions to others. I have lots of verbal thoughts, both addressed to myself and to various inner “test audiences.” I also have non-verbal thoughts; images, music, and impulses. I also have moments of “focused perception” where my thoughts are there but my consciousness is focused on the totality of my being and experience rather than invested in my thoughts. This seems to me a “higher” state which occurs in natural outdoor settings, during meditation, or during exercise or drug experiences.

I question the term “pristine” consciousness. What consciousness is not pristine?

I agree completely. With those higher states I would add “realisation.” Most of the work on many different problems is done in the part of the brain or the mind that is not in the conscious. Chess professionals say the highest rated players in certain positions do not have to calculate they see the correct move. It is my contention that the top players actually do calculate the moves but they aren't aware of their calculations. The calculations are done unconsciously and the mind sends the correct move to the consciousness. Short time time controls force players to avoid conscious calculations and speed up the game. Making calculations conscious slows up the process just like showing all the calculations that a computer does on a screen. However conscious calculation makes error correction easier.

Consciousness is pristine by its very nature. If you think of consciousness as a chalkboard and the sensations in it are like chalk marks then sometimes the chalkboard needs washing. That is why people meditate but the consciousness itself is always clean.

Am I right in assuming that if you hear someone speak that must mean that the speech is presented to your consciousness. Do you agree that if you know what speech means when you are conscious of it, that means you are thinking in speech, even if you do not generate it? Are people who claim they do not think in words aware of practicing what they are going to say before they say it?

It positively amazes me that a mental health professional would consider any size group self reporting on their experience to be conclusive. But a 30 person sample group consisting solely of college kids? That's pretty lax science.

And, in point of fact, you even state clearly that most of us have no earthly idea what's going on in our minds.

The reality is fairly simple: different people have different primary methods of interpreting the world around them. The visually cued individual may very well experience visual inner speech. Those such as you and I are more verbally cued, and could expect verbal inner speech. A person who was deaf at birth would certainly be more likely to experience visual inner speech. Do you see where this is going? It could be music, colors, sounds, whatever. It's happening all the time, in every human being. Even, as you mentioned, while we're unconscious. Especially then.

Because what self-dialogue actually is, seems to be an amalgamation of every single process that happens in the mind. Both conscious and unconscious.

the methodology I've used to reach that conclusion is every bit as valid as your 30 person study.

It positively amazes me that a mental health professional would consider any size group self reporting on their experience to be conclusive. But a 30 person sample group consisting solely of college kids? That's pretty lax science.

And, in point of fact, you even state clearly that most of us have no earthly idea what's going on in our minds.

The reality is fairly simple: different people have different primary methods of interpreting the world around them. The visually cued individual may very well experience visual inner speech. Those such as you and I are more verbally cued, and could expect verbal inner speech. A person who was deaf at birth would certainly be more likely to experience visual inner speech. Do you see where this is going? It could be music, colors, sounds, whatever. It's happening all the time, in every human being. Even, as you mentioned, while we're unconscious. Especially then.

Because what self-dialogue actually is, seems to be an amalgamation of every single process that happens in the mind. Both conscious and unconscious.

the methodology I've used to reach that conclusion is every bit as valid as your 30 person study.

Oh really? Just because you imagine things are a certain way you believe that puts your perspective on par with the perspective of a trained psychologist whose opinions are informed by studies, studies which you, someone who isn't a doctor, believes he has the expertise to shirt on. lol Oh, but you really dont, do you? Because you've admitted your view is invalid, haven't you? It must be invalid, after all, if this study is invalid and if your opinion is just as valid as this study. Hmm... Maybe you should refrain from commenting if you admit you don't know anything. lol Silly NPC.